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User blog:Moon Snail/Why I hate "How To" pages (+ How to make "How To" pages good)
Fun fact about me: I was very active in 2012, 2013 and 2014, not as active in 2015, and I was basically gone in 2016 and 2017. There are a few reasons for this, such as me being more active on other wikis, and my humor evolving beyond the usual RNW shtick at the time. But this was all dwarfed by one massive reason: The How To oversaturation. After about 2 months of everyone editing nothing but those godforsaken pages, I got sick of it and decided to pack up and am-scray, Now, I'll admit, there's nothing wrong with the pages in concept. Hell, back in 2012, they were perfectly fine and harmless. Buuuuut, over the years, they've become more and more of a disaster. How so? Well... let's talk about why. (I'd recommend reading my similar blog regarding Adventure Time. This blog is heavily based around it.) Reason 1: The Flood Back in 2015, for some damn reason, it felt like EVERYONE was editing nothing but those damn pages. Maybe there were a couple of projects were edited in between, but the "Recent Wiki Activity" page was filled with nothing but How To edits. While this isn't the biggest reason why I hate the pages nowadays, but it's the reason I left back in late 2015. I joined Random-ness Wiki for, y'know, randomness; not the same kinds of pages over and over. I'm pretty sure even my favorite page archetypes would drive me off the wiki if people edited nothing but those. Reason 2: Bad writing This is more of multiple reasons compacted into one, but most How To pages are full of bad writing etiquette. Examples include: *As pictured there, the "make the characters look like this" reasons generally show a thumb picture to the right with a long arrow pointing at it. First of all, we're not dumb. We can see the image without the arrow pointing at it. Just say "Make them look like the picture to the right". Secondly, the image is a staple of the section, so pushing it to the side is not a good idea. It should be in the same vertical plane as the text. Thirdly, in smaller monitors, the arrow is gonna look like crap. Even on my 1920x1280 monitor, the arrow almost reaches the picture, so on smaller resolutions, the arrow is gonna break at the image and be pushed down a line. *People will often cross out reasons they disagree with and just write "That would be good/bad!" instead. Why? Just remove the reason if you think it doesn't fit, or set up a vote on whether or not it should be removed. *Some sections have sub-sections with other peoples' ways as opposed to the main section. This is unnecessary. Just add your unique reasons to the main section, damn it! *Conversations often weasel their way into the page itself. This is, as TvTropes calls it, "Natter", and is never good wiki writing. We have comments for a reason, people! *As a result of the conversations, massive indent chains happen very often. Most indents should go 3rd row at most, and anything beyond is just ridiculous. *Some sections themselves will have the tag on them. While yes, most How To pages deserve the tag, the tag is for pages themselves, not sections. Well... perhaps this means we should have a tag in addition, this doesn't excuse people using the main tag for sections. *Ordering? What ordering? Sections are just thrown around like hot potatos. There should be ordering by alphebetical order, chronological order, or from least to most loved/notorious. Reason 3: Bad reasons I know this is subjective, but many reasons wouldn't actually prove to make something good/bad/better/worse on their own. It's usually just small stuff like "Mr. Fuckshits McGee is blue instead of red" or "characters' eyes sparkle occasionally". Okay, that would make it slightly less memorable, but that alone wouldn't make it bad. Okay, maybe most reasons wouldn't on their own make something bad, but my query would personally be this: Take three of the changes at random. Would it always result in a massive impact on the quality? If yes, then it's a success. If not, then some reasons need to be replaced. Maybe one or two minor changes can be fine under this query, but if they're too minor, or if there are too many minor reasons, then it'll be overboard. Reason 4: Wipe it from existence Yeah, maybe this should be fused with Reason 3, but this reason in particular is especially awful. Many "Make bad x good" pages will have these as the only reason, which is ridiculous. How does that improve something's quality? You're just getting rid of it. Executing a serial killer doesn't make them a better person. Throwing away a broken tool doesn't fix it. So why does wiping a series from existence make it better? Plus, it's so fucking childish. "I don't like this thing, so it should be removed from existence even if other people like it! My opinion is law!" Reason 5: Not Funny Now, I'm not the one to indulge in "cringe culture", but even I have to admit: These pages aren't funny. Okay, I did laugh... once. (That being one of the "Burt the bashful" jokes on the Good Video Games Bad page). But other than that, they're just so unfunny that it's painful to read. My least favorite examples are the "Congratulations!" running joke on, again, Good Video Games Bad page, and the aformentioned Wipe it from existence, since I'm pretty sure that it's trying to be funny. Reason 6: Longer than my donger page. (Side note: The Groovenians isn't a movie you dolt)]]These pages are way, way too long. Surely, it'd slow down a poor computer. This also makes the section key 2-3 screens long. On TvTropes, if there's too much content, it's usually sorted into separate pages. Sure, it'd be hard to do here because there's no ordering whatsoever in the pages, but if there was, there's no excuse. This is just too cluttered. Okay, there's a reason why there are so many sections. But this reason is the main reasons why I hate these pages so much. Reason 7: Repitition, Repitition, Repitition. Seriously, there's probably like 40 sections with absolutely no unique reasons. It's just the same over and over. For making good things bad, it's just "Remove this character", "make this character look different", "character dies", "anticlimactic ending", "more fart jokes and toilet humor" and "add 'bad' voice actors". For making bad things good, it's just "Redesign characters", "wipe it from existence", "better quality", "add characters from good thing" and "make x less gross". This just makes the pages really boring and miserable to browse through. Even browsing the pages for research made me feel lifeless, honestly. What's the point of featuring it there if you're not going to do anything creative with it? You're pretty much just saying that you like/hate it and nothing more. ---- And there you have it. That's why I cannot stand these pages. Call it irrational, but I can't be brought to enjoy these pages because of these flaws. Don't quite understand? Hmm... Perhaps I should say it in a more... similar way. BONUS: How to make "How to" pages good *If you only edit "How To" pages, try editing/creating different pages. Editing How To pages exclusively will result in oversaturation, which will make people like me grow sick of it quickly. *Improve the writing. **For character redesigns, show the picture below the "redesign characters to look like this" bullet point. **Delete reasons agreed on to be poor. **Remove sub-sections and add unique reasons to the main section. **Remove conversations. Keep those in the comments. **Order sections alphabetically. *Keep minor reasons down to just two per section. *Wipe it from exist-Just kidding! *Remove "Wipe it from existence" reasons. *Improve upon the humor. *If a How To page is too long, put them into separate pages. I'd say 20 sections per page. *Make sure every section has at least one or two unique reasons. *Make all of them exactly like How to Make Bad Foods Good. That page is godly. But that's all I have to say. Seeya later. [[User:Moon Snail|'Gotta Catch 'em all']], [[Message Wall:Moon Snail| But I have to kill the zombies!]] 04:46, February 3, 2019 (UTC) Category:Blog posts